James Parry

James Parry (1795 – 1877) was a British painter and engraver.

He was the son of Joseph Parry and brother of David Henry Parry, both also artists.

Early life Parry was born in 1795, the youngest of eight children of Joseph Parry and Esther Dunbovand. His exact date of birth is unknown, but he was baptised on 9 September.

He was born in Manchester; his father, an artist, had moved there from Liverpool in 1790 to seek the patronage of the city's new class of wealthy industrialists and merchants. Joseph Parry was an influential figure within Manchester's early artistic community, being given the title of "the Father of Art in Manchester" by his contemporaries for his role as a mentor and teacher of the younger artists who followed in his wake—including James and his older brother David, who both studied in Joseph's studio.

Career Little is documented about the early careers of either Parry or his brother. At some point between then and the 1841 census Parry moved to Grove Street, a small side road off Gartside Street; he would remain in close proximity to Gartside Street for most of the rest of his life, living at 5 Bridge Street by the time of the 1851 census, 18 Mulberry Street by the 1861 census, and 20 Young Street by the 1871 census.

As a painter he was strongly influenced by his father in style, choice of subject matter, and even signature (leading to confusion between the two by later collectors and antiquarians)—they each produced a wide range of portraits and landscapes, including marine and rural scenes, but they both became especially known for their depictions of the buildings and streets of Manchester as it transformed into a modern city during the Industrial Revolution. Parry was also a prolific engraver of both his own paintings and those of others; early notable commissions include Samuel Hibbert-Ware's A Description of the Shetland Islands (1822), John Corry's History of Lancashire (1825), and Rogerson & Sowler's Copperplates of Manchester Edifices (1818-1825)—of which Parry also drew four of the 15 total illustrations.

In 1823, Parry's brother David visited an exhibition in Leeds which had been put on by a society of the city's artists, and he returned to Manchester determined to establish a similar organisation as a way of improving Manchester's cultural reputation. He gathered a group of fellow artists—including Parry, Arthur Perigal, and Charles Calvert—and together they formed the Associated Artists of Manchester, with the stated aim of establishing "the Manchester Institution for the Promotion of Literature, Science, and the Arts," in the vein of the Royal Academy in London. A plot of land was purchased on Mosley Street in 1825 for a building designed by Charles Barry; it would be completed by 1834, but in the meantime the Royal Manchester Institution held the city's first public exhibition of paintings in an art dealer's gallery at 83 Market Street in 1827.

In each of the Institution's annual exhibitions, into the early 1830s, there was a core group of Manchester-based artists—Parry, John Ralston, brothers Charles and Michael Pease Calvert, Henry Liverseege, Arthur Perigal, and Thomas Henry Illidge—whose works were always included. In the first exhibition, Parry submitted a portrait and a "coast scene strongly like William Collins," which "showed him at his best." He exhibited regularly at the Institution until 1856.

In 1857, a new wing was opened at the Salford Free Museum & Library (now the Salford Museum & Art Gallery) in Peel Park, and a group of local artists decided to hold an exhibition of more than 650 works produced in Manchester and the surrounding areas as a counterweight to the major international Art Treasures of Great Britain Exhibition nearby. The Peel Park Local Art Exhibition included a number of works by the generation of artists who had helped found the Royal Manchester Institution—including Parry, his father, and his brother—and the group's leader, Robert Crozier, asked critic G. W. Anthony to author the exhibition's catalogue. Parry supplied Anthony with the information used for the biographies of any artists who had died in the intervening years, with the exceptions of Ralston, Liverseege and Henry Whyatt (each of whom Anthony had known personally); Parry also donated a self-portrait to the museum in 1859 for its permanent collection. The success of the exhibition led to the founding of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 1859 as a school which could continue to develop the city's homegrown artistic talent.

Later life and death Parry never married, nor had children; he was living alone as late as the 1871 census, listed as "unmarried". Several of his paintings are in the Salford Museum & Art Gallery.